Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of entertainment, and more particularly, to automatically providing entertainment content related to television viewing with recommended and favorite shows.
Description of the Related Art
Watching a television is not what it used to be. The TV landscape has changed tremendously over generations. With more players providing content, more distributions channels offering content and more devices/ways for viewing content, it has become increasingly hard to keep track of what is being offered on what channels and at what times. The advance in technology has provided some relief on some fronts but has made it more complicated on other fronts. For instance, with the introduction of digital video recording options (DVR) and extended services, such as whole-house DVR, it is easier to record some of the shows in advance in some devices located in certain parts of the house and watch them later in other devices located in some other parts of the house. However, with the wide variety of shows and equally wide selection of channels, it is becoming increasingly hard to keep track of the shows, channels and times for viewing or recording. Further, with the ubiquitous nature of TV and with multiple TVs per house, TV viewing has become more individualistic adding to additional complication of keeping track of each individual's TV viewing preferences.
Conventional devices, such as remote controls, provide users the ability to pull up a program guide on a television screen, view the details and surf the guide to select various shows of interest. However, with the sheer number of channel offerings and quality of programs, users are faced with a daunting challenge of having to surf through hundreds of channels leading to user frustration and confusion. Further, when a user needs to preview additional offerings on the TV while watching a show on the TV screen, they have to recall the program guide on the TV screen to sort through the channel selections thereby interfering with their TV viewing.
It would be advantageous to provide a way for the users to manage the various shows of their likings in a simple and straight forward way without interfering with their television viewing while enriching the users TV viewing experience.
It is in this context that the embodiments of the invention arise.